box of hearts

Chapter 13 Zhan Chunkui (12)
The small living room in the west suite is brightly lit with candles, and a copper enamel vase stove is placed on the marble table.On a holly-glazed embroidered pier opposite the table, Qiao Yun sat with his eyes down, as peaceful as a line of poetry.And when he raised his eyes, an ancient poem came to his mind: "Bright flowers, bright moon, dark cage and light mist, today Xiao Hao is going to the man's side, wearing socks and walking on the incense steps, and carrying gold-thread shoes."See you at the south bank of the painting hall, always cuddling with people and trembling.It is difficult for a slave to come out, and the teacher will pity him freely.

This poem is written by Empress Li of the Southern Tang Dynasty. It is said that Xiao Zhou was afraid of being discovered when he had a tryst with him. Please love me as much as you can!
Right in front of him, Qing Tian was walking towards him with a shoe in one hand and bare feet, he couldn't wait for joy but he was walking slowly, as if he was stepping out of the erotic words of history.A smile just appeared on the corner of Qiao Yunze's mouth, and then it cooled down instantly—the stalking figure in that word was a queen, and the reason why this woman was carrying her shoes secretly was because she slipped out from a sleeping client prostitute.Qiao Yunze felt a familiar pain in his chest, he stood up and took the prostitute into his arms.

There was a lingering silence before Qingtian raised his head from Qiao Yunze's arms, wrapping his hands around his neck, with Fenghuitou's embroidered shoes hanging on the fingertips of one hand.

"Why are you here at this time?"

Qiao Yun used his long fingers to draw from Qingtian's forehead to the tip of her nose, "I miss you."

As soon as he picked her up, he carried her to a chaise longue in the corner, turned around and took a small altar with an apricot-yellow seal on it.

"Ah", Qingtian exclaimed in surprise, "I'm just about to eat this." She tore open the seal of the jar and put her right hand in, picked out a shiny apricot from inside and put it into her mouth with squinting eyes. After rolling a few times on the two cheeks, an apricot kernel was spit out with a "poof".

Mu Yun stomped her feet angrily on the side of the couch, "You've come back to life now, and your stomach doesn't hurt anymore, right? Mr. Qiao just wanted you to buy this for her, and I'll always lie on the ground to clean it up."

Qiao Yun heard it but didn't respond, his doting eyes never left Qingtian, "Why, your stomach hurts again? Did you eat too much wine?"

"Listen to that hoof talking nonsense, make a big fuss." A layer of fresh blood slowly spread on Qingtian's haggard cheek, "Hey, Mu Yun, I'm not in a hurry to clean up this one, you quietly go back to the room and take the 'things' from my drawer Come on, I just forgot." Then he smiled and pinched out another apricot and brought it to Mu Yun's pursed mouth, "Thank you, elder sister."

Mu Yun couldn't hold back and smiled, opened his mouth to hold the apricot, and turned away.

The summer breeze caused the branches on the window to sway slightly, and Qiao Yun focused on Qingtian.After a while, he put his hand on her shoulder, like a dove perched on a beautiful plum branch.

"In the past few days, I often think about our childhood. At that time, you were eleven and I was thirteen. You were still learning art, and I was also an apprentice in a tailor shop. Every night, I would hit you with a stone. You sleep on a big bunk, and you have to step over six or seven girls to get to the window. I will hold my hand underneath, and your feet will support you to the ground, and then we will slip away and no one will see you in the corner, talking shoulder to shoulder for half a night. You show me the place on your arm where your mother pinched you green, and I will also show you the palm of your hand that was slapped by the master. When you cry, I will conjure a candied fruit from behind your ears, from your sleeves, and from mid-air, and feed it into your mouth—"

"Have a hard day, and taste some sweetness." Qingtian moved his fingers, as if reciting an old nursery rhyme, nostalgic and warm, reminiscing about the whispers they used to have.She recalled the touch of Qiao Yunze's fingertips when he was a teenager, with fine pinholes and powder dust, but it was sweet, so sweet, the only sweetness in her life, pinched in his fingertips every day.Qingtian laughed silently, and put his face on Qiao Yunze's shoulder.

He is still obsessed with the past, his eyes are soft and far away, "Actually, I bought a whole pack, but I only bring one with me every time, because I have to save money for a long time before I can afford the next pack, but I hope you can taste some sweetness every day. I see that you eat so happily that you are greedy, but you don’t want to eat even one. You only secretly lick the paper wrapped in candied fruit, and you don’t want to throw it away after licking it. , I saved them all, and in the end I saved such a big bundle."

Qingtian closed his eyes half-closed, his eyelashes lowered slightly, "Yes, I'm really poor! You are poor, and I am poor too. In this world of flowers and flowers, I see those red ladies, jewels, emeralds and brocades every day, but I don't even have a penny for allowances. No, I had to ask you to steal some leftovers from the shop for me, and then bury yourself in making shoe uppers in your free time, coaxing Diexian and Duixia to help me do it together, I don’t know how many hundreds of pairs you made before asking someone else I bought a small sapphire pendant from outside. You turned pale when you saw it, and asked me where I got the money to buy this? I said it was the money I got from selling embroidery, so you obediently put it on." She pointed The tip slid over his smooth neck, and slipped into the red silk rope that was close to his skin in the neck socket.

Qiao Yun laughed, "Later you found out that the jade pendant was fake, and you cried so angry that you insisted on going to find the liar. I coaxed it all night, and swore that I would wear this jade pendant for the rest of my life and never leave it. "

"It's all a kid's joke." With a light hook, Qingtian hooked up the red rope around his neck: it was so old that it was hairy, twisted a concentric knot, and tied a jade pendant the size of a thumbnail. The pendant was also mottled with sweat, but it was just an ordinary stone that had been dyed.She twisted the pendant, bit her lips and smiled, "It's really stupid when I think about it, I never saw a good one at that time, I don't know the goods at all, and I can't tell the real from the fake. It's just you, you still wear it after so many years." Even with this counterfeit, I don’t think it’s cheap.”

Qiao Yun put his palm on Qingtian's hand, and closed the stone pendant in her palm, "This is not a fake, this is the most authentic in the world."

Qingtian raised her eyes to look at him, the eyes were as black as black amber, covered with a layer of light mist, and then she smiled.At this moment, Qiao Yun felt that the whole world took a step back beside them.

She lowered her eyes a little bit with a smile again, "Fortunately, we got rich later."

Qiao Yun's hazy eyes changed sharply, "Later," he let go of Qingtian's hand, his voice sounded restrained and measured, "you're rich. Every time you give me money in private, it's not easy for my mother to find out." You were the one who suffered, either starving and not giving you food, or simply beating you up. I remember the last time my mother beat you. I crawled in through the window to visit you, but was blocked by my mother. You were so frightened. I pushed into the closet, and she came over and opened the closet door, pointed at you and said to me: "This stubborn girl, I beat her with a whip soaked in water, and she didn't say a word when I saw you. Wow, crying so loudly, I heard it from outside the yard. You don’t need to hide, come later if you want.’”

Qingtian's eyes were sparkling, he just smiled deeply, "What's wrong today, you only talk about these old things?"

Just when I was speechless, I suddenly heard a few "chacha", it was the cat letting out the sound of nails walking on the ground.

"Zaiyu!" Qingtian laughed and whispered, bent over and took the white cat into his arms, rubbed against the hairy ear, and grabbed its front paws to make trouble for Qiao Yunze, "Look who is here, who is here? Zai Yu, don't do this, Zai Yu, hello!"

Zaiyu's reaction was unexpected. At first, he was awkwardly dodging back and forth, but then he raised his claws and scratched the back of Qiao Yunze's hand hard.

Qingtian was so angry that he wanted to hit him, "This bloody bastard, why did you look like this when I saw you recently? Hmph, on the contrary, the last time the prince regent came, he was so courteous that he couldn't even drive him away. Turn, the older you get, the more you become a snob." She cursed a few words, took Qiao Yunze's hand to look at it, and blew gently on the claw mark.

He stared at the few traces of blood gradually rising on the skin on the back of his hand, his eyelids twitched, "Has the Prince Regent ever come again?"

"Well, just that one time. Mom still pestered me to ask me the identity of the 'Wang Sanye'. How many brains did I have to dare to talk nonsense? It seems that he is indeed a nephew of the Shoufu Wang family, who has been let out before. In the end, my mother blamed me for not being good at fawning, so that people refused to even come to the second door. What does she know? I don’t care about the prince of the royal family or the prince regent. You are my prince and my emperor. , My God..." Without saying a word, she hugged Qiao Yunze's arm with a smile, leaned against it with her face sideways, and rubbed against it.

"Tsk tsk tsk, I haven't seen you for a few days, and you're tired of this unsightly look?" But seeing Mu Yun go back and forth, he sneered and smashed several pieces of paper straight to Qingtian's nose. Next, "Here, are you confused after eating wine? Where is it in the drawer? You stuffed it under the makeup box again, which made it easy for me to find it."

Qingtian smiled and straightened up, still holding Qiao Yunze's arm with both hands, and pushed his mouth towards him.

Qiao Yun shook his head, "I have enough money."

"What's enough?" Qing Tian grabbed the wad of banknotes, and directly opened the scythe bag on his waist to put it in, "I didn't hear people say 'poor Hanlin' and 'poor Hanlin' all day long, those people on it are all lions Open your mouth, how can you have enough? Your status is not what it used to be. You have to pay homage to your teacher, reunite in the same year, set up a flagpole, and invite congratulatory guests. If you are negligent, the management of previous years will be in vain. Besides, you just bought a new house, and it will cost a lot of money to repair it. Those foolish old ladies should also quit, and get some decent people to cook soup for you , don’t turn around and ask those Nianyis to go home, people laugh at those who don’t have a drink or a banquet.”

(End of this chapter)